Cross-Stitch
Description
A debut novel of female friendship and coming-of-age from Jazmina Barrera, acclaimed author of Linea Nigra and On Lighthouses, translated by Christina MacSweeney.It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime. Mila, Citlali, and Dalia, childhood friends now college aged, leave Mexico City for the London of The Clash and the Paris of Courbet. They anticipate the cafés and crushes, but not the early signs that they are each steadily, inevitably changing. That feels like forever ago. Mila, now a writer and a new mother, has just published a book on needlecraft--an art form so long dismissed as "women's work." But after learning Citlali has drowned, Mila begins to sift through her old scrapbooks, reflecting on their shared youth for the first time as a new wife and mother. What has come of all the nights the three friends spent embroidering together in silence? Did she miss the signs that Citlali needed help?
Product Details
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About the Author
Christina MacSweeney has an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia. Her work has been recognized in a number of important awards. Her translation of Valeria Luiselli's The Story of My Teeth was awarded the 2016 Valle Inclán Translation Prize and also shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award (2017). Her most recent translations include fiction and nonfiction works by Daniel Saldaña París, Elvira Navarro, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Julián Herbert, Jazmina Barrera, and Karla Suárez. She has also contributed to anthologies of Latin American literature and published translations, articles and interviews on a variety of platforms.
Reviews
One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2023 (The Millions)
One of the Best Books of the 2023 So Far (Chicago Review of Books)
A Publishers Lunch Buzz Book Selection for 2023
"Stitches, secrets, shame: When Jazmina Barrera's first novel translated into English, Cross-Stitch, hits shelves in November, read it. Barrera stitches a female coming-of-age story together with a feminist history and theory of embroidery, and it consumed my entire day." --Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books
"A feminist, intertextual gem reminiscent of Still Born and A Ghost in the Throat, Cross-Stitch considers friendship and grief alongside women's work, musing on its serious themes with nimble grace." --Shelf Awareness
"The multi-talented Barrera, author of the memoir Linea Nigra (2022), turns to fiction in this introspective translation from the original Spanish... Lovers of language and subtle character development will be enthralled."--Booklist
"The novel evokes the awkward process of growing up, chronicling adolescence and the transition into adulthood vividly and frankly...a somber book about the formative, irreplicable experiences shared between friends and the agony and bewilderment of loss." --Kirkus Reviews
"Jazmina Barrera's Cross-Stitch is a beautifully woven tale of friendship, coming of age, womanhood, and loss that never shies away from the complexity of grief--all while honoring the joy that is to be found in life. Masterfully written, and with a fascinating history of the art of needlework stitched throughout, here is a delicate novel in which embroidery becomes a breathtaking language unto itself. Christina MacSweeney perfectly captures Jazmina Barrera's poetic voice in this incredibly precise and moving translation." --Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts
"Jazmina Barrera has written an astonishing book, one that illuminates the mysterious, intricate, and eternal nature of female friendship. Through prose that never fails to find the profound in the particular, Barrera's Cross-Stitch takes readers on a journey through the little private universes people make through relation to one another." --Chloé Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty
"Barrera embroiders a tender story of friendship and loss, intricately weaving the complexities of womanhood, self-discovery, and the human experiences that bind us." --Reyna Grande, author of A Ballad of Love and Glory
"Never has a novel about friendship rung truer to me than this one. This is literary art at its most insightful, most tender, most wise. Cross-Stitch is a soft-spoken, hyper-articulate masterpiece. " --John Wray, author of Gone to the Wolves
